Dodge Viper SRT sets new record at Laguna Seca

By Matt Brogan | November 25th, 2009

The Street and Racing Technology (SRT) team from Chrysler Group arrived at Laguna Seca raceway today on a mission – to recapture the production car lap record at the world-renowned road course in Monterey, California.

In just over a minute and a half, it was mission accomplished.

SRT vehicle dynamics engineer, Chris Winkler, piloted the black and red 2010 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR (American Club Racer) to an unofficial lap record of 1:33.915 (1:33.944 on the pit-lane timer) around the 2.238 mile (3.602 km), 11-turn course – smashing the previous lap record by more than 1.1 seconds.

Remarkably, it was just Winkler’s second session at the track, but he had no troubles guiding the Viper over Laguna Seca’s undulating surface.

“Following my first practice here last month, I came away pretty confident that we’d be able to set a new record.”

“It was definitely exciting but a somewhat uneventful lap overall from behind the steering wheel,” he said.

The Devon GTX, a 485kW one-of-a-kind prototype, set the previous lap record in August at 1:35.075, now 1.160 seconds shy of the Viper.

The SRT10 ACR is an 8.4-litre, V10 propelled monster packing 600hp (447kW) and 758Nm of torque.

Top speed is 184 mph (296 km/h), 0-100km/h is achieved in less than four seconds, 0-160-0 km/h all happens in 11 seconds dead and the quarter mile is burnt off before the clock strikes 12.

The aero package features a “fanged” carbon-fibre splitter in the front and an adjustable carbon-fibre wing at the back creating 1000 lbs of downforce.

The 2010 Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR will make its worldwide auto show debut on December 2 at the Los Angeles Auto Show, where it will be displayed as one of the last Vipers of its kind.

Earlier this month, Dodge announced that it would build the last 500 Vipers next year, with no promise that the halo car will ever make a return.

But Dodge President and CEO, Ralph Giles, said the Viper would get the send off it deserved and was committed to manufacturing a successor in the near future:

“We’re going to keep Dodge’s performance icon alive and well by not only producing some of the most special Vipers ever built, but we’re also investigating what the next-generation Viper is going to be.

“When we have partners across the ocean who are known as the best sports carmakers in the world, the future opportunities are huge.”

by Tim Beissmann

PN

Suprisingly low top speed for an 8.4L V10
George Skentzos

Actually that’s quite an impressive top speed considering the enormous fixed rear spoiler.
Hung Low

What a beast………these cars are the last of their kind thanks to all the clueless do gooders and tree huggers who have no interest in motoring.
Predominantly Toyota and Skoda owners I assume!
http://skyline The Salesman

Have they tried a Tesla around this track?
Yanzo

i have this track on forza 3!
http://carz.com/ Carz

Awesome!!! What a super fast and cool looking car. This is definitely another impressive performance car…top speed is amazing.
Schuss

What low tech rubbbbish! So little power from such a large engine

Hung Low

That low tech rubbish holds the lap record at Laguna seca and is faster around the ‘Ring’ than any production Porsche, Ferrari, ZOnda or Lambo! Get a clue because a dinosaur tech, naturally aspirated push rod motor has wiped the floor!
ElecEng

The engine might be low tech, but the suspension, ecu, tyres and aerodynamics must have been high tech. It doesn’t just take a high tech engine alone to go fast around a track.
And this Viper proved it.
mmhmm

Probably a Ford fanboy. They love denigrating the superior V8′s from other manufacturers while talking up the supposedly high tech Ford offering, which is in fact one of the most second rate crappy V8′s on the market

Lion

Far more likely to be a eurotrash or Toyota fanboy.

schuss

Oh don’t get me wrong it’s a fast car just look at the numbers! Just the engine itself is low tech in terms of kw per L of capacity. Lower than most production cars produced these days. But yes like you said I’m not the biggest fan of American cars.

Gilly

KW per litre is not an indication of engine efficiency! Google ‘BMEP’ to save me the explanation!

Will

The machine would have reflected far more commendable engineering had it maintained a pace over say 1000km rather than doing a quick lap. Unfortunately for Chrysler, there are a number of factors that are deleterious to the machine reflecting competent engineering under such a task when compared to competition: Weight and inertia, archaic engineering, compromised build quality, and fuel consumption to state but a few.

God bless Klutz.